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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27014143">Arkadia-on-the-Sea</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/semele/pseuds/semele'>semele</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The 100 (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, Modern Era</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-07 02:21:15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>16,268</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27014143</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/semele/pseuds/semele</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Eight months ago, Bellamy broke up with his girlfriend, packed up his entire life in London, and moved to a small town somewhere in East Sussex to teach history in the local school. He didn't realize that the notorious Raven Reyes, the resident former juvenile delinquent, is actually one of his neighbors - until the day she randomly offers to fix his motorbike for free.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Bellamy Blake/Raven Reyes</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>46</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>24</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Raven, Flat 9</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/gaypiratedivorce/gifts">gaypiratedivorce</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Okay, look. There is quite a lot to unpack here.</p><p>1. This story is based on an AU we brained out together with Shortitude ages ago, but with her permission, I took the concept and main plot points, and turned it into a fic.</p><p>2. Those with an eye for language will notice that this story is set quite firmly in England, but uses American spelling and a mix of British and American idiom. This is very similar to how I actually speak, and I thought it would be interesting to see how this kind of dissonance would work out in a story.</p><p>3. I actually have no clue how motorbikes or tattoos work, so apologies in advance to those of you who do.</p><p>4. I started writing this because I hit an awful writing slump over the last few months (thanks, global pandemic with your general feeling of overwhelming despair), and I just wanted to write <i>anything</i> to make myself going. Drea suggested a self-indulgent modern AU, and they always have exclusively good ideas, so I went with it, and I am having a blast. I reckon this will be about 4 chapters, after which I'll do something radical, like look at my actual WIPs. The rating is high for something that is due to happen in Chapter 3.</p><p>5. You will notice even from the summary that Bellamy has an ex girlfriend. I didn't put it in the tags because I don't hate myself, but fair warning: said ex girlfriend is Clarke. I know that a lot of people in Braven fandom (myself included) have strong feelings about this, so I didn't want you to be blindsided. </p><p>A massive thank you to Drea for pushing me to write this - they truly are the hero I needed!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>On Wednesday, as he walks down the stairs with an irrationally glittery box, Bellamy tells himself firmly that this weekend, he will definitely book a check-up for Lady Jane. He might not even wait for the weekend. He finishes classes early on Thursday, so he could totally google the fancy repair shop in town tomorrow, and make a phone call. How long is a phone call going to take? Ten minutes, together with checking details and shuffling through calendars? It’s not like Lady Jane needs a lot of work done; probably nothing more than an oil change and a little love. Fine, maybe fifteen minutes, just because she is an old lady and needs some extra questions answered. It’s a phone call. Surely it will take fifteen minutes, tops.</p><p>Well, so far, it has taken him approximately seven months.</p><p>Back in August, he literally moved Lady Jane into Arkadia under the cover of darkness, but in his defense, he didn’t plan to be quite so dramatic about it. It’s just that packing up his old life in London took so much longer than he’d expected, and by the time he was able to drive his rented moving van out, sun was already setting. By the time he finally got to Arkadia, all he could do is stick Lady Jane in his garage as quietly as possible, and hope for the best. He had boxes to unpack, new job to start, new life to settle into. Surely a motorbike he hadn’t at that point ridden for over a year wasn’t on top of his priority list. It wasn’t until late September that he decided he should see a mechanic, and it was a good decision. Too bad he has since made zero progress on executing it.</p><p>Now he has to grab a box of old notes from uni from the garage, and while he is at it, shamefully tuck away Christmas decorations he didn’t bother bringing down until now, so he is being painfully reminded of Lady Jane. He tries his best to finish shuffling boxes quickly, because the longer he looks at the bike, the more guilt weighs on him, but of course the rush only means that he is sloppy on top of noisy, as if his garage is full of very sarcastic gremlins that placed the notes right at the bottom of a tall stack of boxes. Which kind of makes sense, because of course Past Bellamy would have put the heaviest box at the bottom, but…</p><p>“Oh wow. Look at that beauty!”</p><p>Bellamy’s head immediately whips around, and he sees a girl cautiously peeking into his garage, her eyes absolutely glued to Lady Jane. She is one of the neighbors, he thinks, and she might even live on his floor, but he doesn’t know her name, which is probably some kind of a faux pas. His mother would say that his years of living in London are showing, but he still can’t bear the idea of knocking on doors and introducing himself to neighbors, which is something normal people are apparently supposed to do.</p><p>“Hi,” he calls out awkwardly, causing his neighbor to stick her hands in her pockets, looking a bit sheepish but mostly fascinated.</p><p>“Sorry for butting in,” she says with a smile. “I just couldn’t help noticing. That’s a sweet ride you’re keeping in there. Is it new? I don’t think I’ve seen it before.”</p><p>“No. No, I… She’s out of commission.“ Why he is suddenly explaining himself to a complete stranger, he has no idea, but here he goes. “I keep meaning to take her to that fancy repair place in town, but hasn’t happened yet. I should fix her up and sell her.”</p><p>“Her, huh?” The girl tilts her head, and with that tall ponytail, old school jeans, leather jacket, and a tattoo peeking from behind her ear, she has enough of a cool biker vibe to make him feel absolutely frumpy. “Where were you going to take her? Sinclair’s?”</p><p>“That’s the one.”</p><p>“Sinclair’s don’t do bikes,” she explains, confirming his suspicion that she probably owns one herself. Why else would she know the fine details of motorbike repair infrastructure in Arkadia? “Tell you what. I can fix her up for you. Just to be neighborly, or something. Totally not because I wanna get my hands on that beauty for at least a few hours. What do you say? I'll give you my number, you can text me when you’re free, or something.”</p><p>Bellamy is so stunned by the fact that something he has been procrastinating on just fixed itself without him taking any action that he nods, pulls out his phone, and one awkward exchange of names and numbers later, they’re fixed for next Saturday. He hears a suspicious crack when he accidentally pushes then Christmas decorations box a little too hard out of the way to clear the view of Lady Jane a bit better, and he realizes halfway through the conversation that he’s been nervously pulling at his turtleneck to make sure the tattoo on his collarbone is covered, but overall, he doesn’t make a huge fool of himself. He even manages to give correct information about Lady Jane off the top of his head, and write down a list of consumables his neighbor wants him to provide for when she fixes up his bike.</p><p>The new contact on his phone gets saved as “Raven, Flat 9”.</p><p>***</p><p>Raven isn’t exactly a common name, and Bellamy, being a school teacher, is naturally immersed right in the local gossip mill, so it’s not hard to guess who is Lady Jane’s miracle repair woman. Raven Reyes is infamous as The Bad Girl of Arkadia, for sins ranging from riding a very loud motorbike, to having been caught kissing a girl at a party eight years ago, to having a general demeanor of someone who doesn’t give a shit about people’s opinions. Apparently she was some kind of a local genius growing up, and even did a year at Oxford, but then came back supposedly in disgrace, and has been working at Sinclair’s repair shop ever since. All in all, she sounds exactly like the kind of person Bellamy would have been friends with at uni, so by Thursday, he is over his initial anxiety and actually looking forward to Saturday repairs. This will do him good, he decides. It’s one thing to want to lay low and make life easy for himself in a new place, but he took it too far last winter. He’s been in Arkadia for eight months, and while he really likes his students, he hasn’t made a single friend. It can’t be good for him to be on his own as much as he usually is now.</p><p>When he texts Raven on Friday morning, he is excited enough that he can’t stop grinning at his phone.</p><p>
  <tt>Okay, I have all the stuff you told me to get for Lady Jane. All ready for tomorrow. I forgot to ask, how much do I owe you?</tt>
</p><p>The responses take a while to come, but when they do, his phone buzzes a few times in quick succession.</p><p>
  <tt>lol u text like a teacher<br/>Im doing this for the pleasure of handling your vintage babe of a bike<br/>Get me cookies or something its fine<br/>See u tomorrow teach</tt>
</p><p>It makes him snort in the middle of teachers’ room, loudly enough for the geography teacher to shoot him a judgmental stare for Laughing At His Phone Like a Millennial, but he doesn’t even care.</p><p>
  <tt>I AM a teacher, I’ll have you know. Are you sure about the money? That would set me back a good few hundred if I went to a shop. I don’t want to take advantage.</tt>
</p><p>This time, his phone goes quiet until late afternoon, which is probably when Raven’s shift ends. It buzzes just as Bellamy is stepping into a grocery shop, which is probably a good thing. Gives him enough time to add a few essentials to his shopping list.</p><p>
  <tt>I know youre my boss kids fave teacher<br/>Fine you can get me cookies and lunch god<br/>Its prob just an oil change im not giving you my first born</tt>
</p><p>Cookies and lunch, then. He is on it.</p><p>***</p><p>They’re set to get started on Lady Jane at eleven, which gives Bellamy plenty of time to try to cook to impress. By the time Raven texts to say she is downstairs, he has a banana bread cooling on the kitchen table, a veggie quiche coming out of the oven, and a batch of chocolate chip cookies he baked last night, all ready to be stuffed in a tin. Too much? Possibly, but in his defense, Raven is restoring a vintage bike for free for him.</p><p>“Snacks,” he announces as he joins her downstairs, two slices of banana bread on a plate in one hand, a thermos of coffee in the other. “The actual cookies and lunch are upstairs. I hope you’re not vegan, because if you are, I’m screwed. I realized too late that I added egg to everything before I thought to ask.”</p><p>Raven tilts her head, and he could swear she wants to sniff the food suspiciously.</p><p>“Added egg? Wait, you made this? And lunch, and cookies?” She whistles. “Yeah, you totally want to sell that bike. I can already see the listing.”</p><p>He almost tells her to fuck off, in his fondest tone, but then he realizes that they are complete strangers as opposed to old friends, and he possibly shouldn’t swear at her while she is doing him a favor.</p><p>“Drink your coffee while I open the garage,” he ends up saying grumpily. “I didn’t know if you take milk, so I brought it separately.”</p><p>“You brought me a creamer,” she croons, examining the tiny jug he placed next to her banana bread. “And you baked. Fuck me, you’re such a grandpa. And with your turtlenecks, commas in texts and all. How are you real?”</p><p>“It’s a carefully curated image.”</p><p>“I bet it is.” </p><p>Raven inhales the coffee, milk and all, while Bellamy opens the garage and carefully leads Lady Jane out, maneuvering between boxes. It’s amazing how much shit he already managed to amass in less than a year. Or, to be fair – it’s amazing how much shit he chose to haul in here all the way from his old life.</p><p>“Let’s see her,” says Raven briskly before Bellamy can wallow in self-pity some more. “Oh wow, you weren’t kidding when you called her Lady Jane. Did you write the name on the side yourself, or did you get someone else to do it?”</p><p>As she speaks, she is already starting on some mechanic magic Bellamy doesn’t fully understand, but he gets that he is supposed to stay here and entertain her as she works. This is probably part of his payment, together with the cookies.</p><p>“Neither,” he replies, setting on the steps by the front door to their building to tell the whole story. “That was already there when I bought Lady Jane. The previous owner was, and I’m going on an assumption here, a jovial butch lesbian who had a wife named Jane. She offered to take fifty quid off the price if I promised never to change the name. I was thirty short of her asking price, so I took it.”</p><p>“That. Is amazing,” says Raven, and she even gives him a low whistle before looking up from over the machine. “And you’ve had her for how long?”</p><p>“Six years.”</p><p>“Right. You haven’t changed the name, written in fucking <i>lilac</i> paint on the side of your bike for six years, just because you were thirty quid short that one time. Oh God, you’re so full of it.”</p><p>Bellamy shrugs, but doesn’t try to hide a smile.</p><p>“Hey, a promise is a promise. She doesn’t have to know I would’ve kept the name anyway. I fell in love with Lady Jane the second I saw her. Exactly as she was.”</p><p>Raven’s silence in response to that speaks volumes, and Bellamy doesn’t need her to spell it out. Is he really going to sell the bike once it’s restored? It would fetch a good price, that’s for sure, but… there is a reason why he’s been putting off this repair. Deep down, he knows he didn’t really want to get rid of Lady Jane. He possibly should have outgrown her by now, but clearly he hasn’t, and here he is. Just seeing her under Raven’s clever hands is making him want to go for a ride.</p><p>“How badly have I neglected her?” he asks, mostly to get away from his thoughts.</p><p>“She needs a little bit of love, but nothing major. She’ll be good as new by the time I’m done with her. Oh, she’s beautiful. Why would you even stop riding her?”</p><p>“My girlfriend didn’t like her, and it became a problem after we moved in together.”</p><p>Raven frowns at that, and looks up, clearly confused.</p><p>“Girlfriend? I thought you live alone.”</p><p>“I do now.”</p><p>“Ah.”</p><p>And that’s that. Raven goes on to explain in detail what she’s doing, clearly trying to educate him about maintenance, though apparently he’s been doing a decent job so far. Lady Jane needs her oil changed and her brakes checked, but overall, he has stored her well, and shielded her from damage. The previous owner gets heaps of kudos as well, and it’s very clear that Raven is pleased with what she found. It fills Bellamy with a strange sort of pride.</p><p>“Alright, that’s done,” she announces in the end. “You can put her back in. And not ride her, I guess. Or sell her to some midlife crisis dad of three, who will kill the engine to prove that his dick hasn’t shrunk. You better give me those cookies before I think about this too much.”</p><p>Giving her cookies turns into a three-hour late lunch in his living room, complete with a quiche, a heaping serving of salad, and some more banana bread. He catches another glimpse of a tattoo on Raven’s ankle, when her jeans ride up a bit, shares some lightweight school gossip, gets her to tell him some stories about the people who lived in his apartment before he rented it, and smiles like a fool when they finally say goodbye late in the afternoon. </p><p>That evening, tense and excited, he throws on a warm jacket, goes back to the garage, and takes Lady Jane for her first spontaneous ride in almost two years. His head becomes quiet once he puts on his helmet, his hands settle on the handles and go through starting the engine like he doesn’t even have to think about it, and he rides into the night, leaving his new, tight-laced life behind just for a little while.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. A floral fuck you</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Bellamy and Raven discuss, among other things, tattoos, caffeine, Brighton Pride and the drawbacks of being short.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I think I might have to just keep rolling with this story. Thanks for reading so far!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <tt>Hey do you happen to have a step ladder<br/>Asking for a friend who is really short</tt>
</p><p>The message comes through in the evening, while Bellamy is drowning in papers to mark, and he can’t help a smile as he looks at his phone. Asking for a friend, huh?</p><p>
  <tt>Is your short friend named Raven? I don’t have a step ladder, but I can come over and put stuff up if you’d like. </tt>
</p><p>This time, the response comes quickly, and makes him laugh out loud in response.</p><p>
  <tt>Shut up you dont know me<br/>Yes please flat 9</tt>
</p><p>He is still grinning when he knocks at her door, and the fact that she looks like she is about to actually huff at him makes everything so much better.</p><p>“I threw away my kitchen step thingy because I had a brainwave and moved everything down a few months ago. But I forgot one storage bag on top of my closet, and I think it has my summer clothes. So, you know. Appreciate the help, but if you tell anyone that I’m too short to pick up my own tshirts, I <i>will</i> end you. Oh…”</p><p>The sound she lets out is barely audible, but it makes Bellamy follow her gaze, and that’s when he remembers that he just came here in his house clothes, because who would change out of sweatpants and a tshirt just to do their neighbor a quick favor? Now, thanks to his carelessness, Raven now gets a front row view of his largest watercolor tattoo: a soft vine curling over his left wrist, then coiling loosely all over his arm until it disappears under his sleeve, with a scattering of bold, white flowers along the length. There is even a tip of one leaf peeking from under his collar, giving a hint that the plant goes all around his shoulder and chest, finishing just over his heart. The whole design is quite striking against his skin, so no wonder Raven’s eyes are drawn to it, ignoring an array of smaller images on his right arm. </p><p>Before Bellamy can panic over the unplanned reveal, Raven composes herself and clears her throat, then lets him in as if nothing happened, nothing to see there, moving on. If she is still staring when she falls behind him on the way to her bedroom, he neither knows nor wants to know. </p><p>In the bedroom, it turns out she has one of those built-in closets with the tallest shelf so stupidly high that even Bellamy can’t reach it. He grabs himself a chair without thinking, and soon he is back down, a massive, dusty vacuum-sealed bag in hand. Here, all done. In awkwardly tense silence, but done. Bellamy takes a deep breath.</p><p>“Sorry,” he says as he hands Raven the bag. “I don’t normally show those off.”</p><p>“I mean, I don’t get why. They’re gorgeous. Who is your artist? That’s some amazing work.”</p><p>“Yeah, well.” He smiles, and decides he is going to make himself power through the embarrassment. If anyone is not going to judge him, it’s his hotshot biker neighbor. He was supposed to stop being so strict with himself, wasn’t he? Laying low for a while – good. Disappearing – bad.</p><p>So he takes a deep breath, and hikes his left sleeve even higher up, to show off a big flower blooming on his shoulder.</p><p>“Sins of the past,” he explains softly. “I got this when I was nineteen, lost touch with the artist since. It was… Well, to be perfectly honest, it was basically a big floral ‘fuck you’.”</p><p>“It’s floral alright, yeah…”</p><p>She makes a move like she wants to touch it, then catches herself at the last minute. It’s so strangely endearing that Bellamy decides to throw her a lifeline, because apparently they’re now having a whole conversation instead of him just dropping in for five minutes to take a heavy object off a high shelf.</p><p>“So what about your artist? Is it someone local?”</p><p>Raven responds by grabbing her pant leg, and yanking it a few inches up, showing more of the intricate geometric design he already spotted on her ankle last weekend. It looks ridiculously complex, and someone clearly put a lot of skill into designing something that’s so colorful and busy, and yet looks like not a single detail is accidental or out of place.</p><p>“Yeah,” she says enthusiastically. “I mean, not exactly, he’s in Brighton, but… yeah. Why are we standing in my bedroom like fools over a bag of shirts? Come on in, let’s sit in the living room and swap tattoo stories. I think I’ve got beer. Do you want a beer?”</p><p>“No, thanks,” he says even as he still walks over to the leaving room. He doesn’t need to be shown the way – their apartments are identical, he notices, and it’s not like any two-bed is rocket science. “I still have a pile of papers to grade before bed, so I probably shouldn’t.”</p><p>“Oh good, because I’m not keeping it in the fridge and it’s probably warm and disgusting.”</p><p>She brings them tea instead, in some ridiculously jolly mugs, and by the time they both settle on the couch, Bellamy is relaxed enough that he doesn’t try tugging his collar up anymore.</p><p>It turns out that Raven was in an accident in her first year of Oxford, and has a fucked up knee (clearly, a medical term – and an explanation why she didn’t get on a chair to grab that bag from the top shelf herself) to show for it. This, and her mother’s sudden illness, are apparently the mundane reason behind her mysterious and much-gossiped-about return to Arkadia before she could get her fancy degree. Reading between the lines, there must have been something else there, too, but Bellamy has been a teacher long enough to guess without having to ask. He can recognize a brilliant working class student steadily crushed by constant interactions with privileged assholes when he sees one. </p><p>“So you got the tattoo to cover the scar? ” he asks, not that he can see any evidence. The actual wound must have been higher up than Raven is showing him.</p><p>“Yeah, but not right away. With my mom being sick… I started it some time after she died. Took me a while to save up the money. I wanted to go to that specific guy, I knew he’d do it exactly right, and I didn’t want my leg to look even worse. So what about you? Why is that gorgeous vine a floral fuck you?”</p><p>He tenses up a little at that, but makes an effort to sound casual.</p><p>“I went to a uniform class in school,” he says like it’s a natural or obvious thing. “You know, one of those where they train kids up so they can join the army as soon as they do their A-levels. But instead of signing up, I applied to study history at a funky liberal arts uni, grew out my hair over the summer, and after a few months I thought to myself, what is the biggest, most irreversible, most in-your-face way I could flaunt how much of a pacifist I now was.” He grins. “The tattoo artist had qualms about putting anything on my face, as I was nineteen and an idiot, but this was the next best thing. I thought white flowers were metaphorical and poetic. I have since learned that they’re not, but that’s okay, because sometimes you just have to be on the nose with your metaphors.”</p><p>When Raven laughs at that, straight from the belly, and gets up to grab their mugs and refill them, Bellamy realizes two things. One, he’s been here for two hours, and is now behind enough on his grading to guarantee not going to sleep before midnight. Two, he might just be developing a crush on his neighbor.</p><p>It takes another hour of laughing, and talking, and swapping stories before he leaves, and even though the next day, he is a zombie fueled by stubbornness and caffeine, he also doesn’t regret it for a single second.</p><p>***</p><p>Over the next few weeks, they still look for vaguely reasonable excuses to see each other, but once they invent swapping books and DVDs, coming up with reasons for visits becomes significantly easier. Then one afternoon in April, Bellamy has a genius idea that changes the game forever.</p><p>
  <tt>The weather is supposed to be gorgeous on Saturday and I refuse to sit inside and do more grading. I need a day off. Wanna grab our bikes and ride to the seaside? Day trip?</tt>
</p><p>He doesn’t expect a quick answer, since Raven sometimes works long hours, and obviously doesn’t check her phone while being elbows-deep in mysterious engine goo, but for once, she surprises him by texting back immediately. </p><p>
  <tt>Fuck yeah we could go to brighton that would be amazing<br/>I havent been for months we could walk along the beach with takeaway coffee like rich hipsters<br/>Give me a mo I have a shift on sat<br/>I need to find a loser to swap with me</tt>
</p><p>Clearly losers are easy to find at Sinclair’s, possibly because he knows Raven hardly ever asks her coworkers for favors and they all owe her for this or that. Either way, she texts him again after less than an hour, asking if setting out at nine is good for him, and also informing him that she’s going to get in touch with a friend so he can show them around and recommend some good places to eat. If Bellamy was to hazard a guess, he’d say that the mysterious friend is probably the tattoo artist she mentioned earlier; it’s not like Raven hangs out with a lot of people, and it’s only partly because she works so much. Given all the stories he’s heard about her before he even met her, Bellamy can’t exactly blame her for not going out of her way to make friends in Arkadia.</p><p>On Saturday morning, he is mortified to be exactly three minutes late, but in his defense, he realized way too late that if he takes Lady Jane on a trip with Raven wearing his usual buttoned-up teacher camouflage, he’s going to look like a clown. At the last minute, he swapped a faithful turtleneck for a simple white tshirt, then went hunting at the back of his closet until he recovered the old leather jacket he used to love riding in. It took him long enough that he had to forego smoothing back his hair, which is probably a good thing; the outfit is already making him look like a cliché James Dean wannabe, which is precisely why he bought this jacket the second he spotted it in a charity shop years ago. He’d have paid way more than fifty quid for the opportunity to look like a melodramatic little shit while also staying warm on his bike.</p><p>Okay, maybe not way more, because he was ridiculously broke back then, but, like, at least a tenner more.</p><p>Raven gives a low whistle when she sees him, and he rolls his eyes in response, but can’t help grinning as he opens the garage to lead Lady Jane out. This is something Raven has been doing recently; faux flirting every time he lets his hair down a little, especially if it involves showing a little bit of skin. This is the first time he is doing it outdoors with her, which feels less like a milestone than it possibly should, but then – it’s been cold, so it’s not like they’ve gone out a lot. What’s more momentous is not that this is the first time he is letting Arkadia catch a glimpse of a leaf on his collarbone as he rides out to smell the sea – it’s the fact that he’s been like this around Raven twenty times already, and by now it feels so normal that he didn’t even stop to think who will see him when he was changing this morning. </p><p>“Stop leering at the sins of my youth,” he scolds Raven jokingly as they put on their helmets. </p><p>“The <i>glory</i> of your youth,” she reminds him prissily, then sets out without another comment, trusting him to follow. After all, she is the one who knows the way.</p><p>She must know some amazing shortcut, because they get to Brighton in a lot less time than he was anticipating, and after leaving their bikes in Raven’s chosen car park, they set out to conquer the city on foot. Bellamy has been to Brighton a few times before, including two trips for Pride, but never with someone who can pass as a local, and anyway, after a winter or licking his wounds in Arkadia, any outing would feel like an exciting novelty. It definitely doesn’t hurt that Brighton is gorgeous, he can feel sea breeze on his face, he is in good company, and he has been promised some amazing coffee. <i>The good shit, not that crap they try to pass as a cappuccino because they cover it with an inch of cocoa</i>, to quote Raven. Who clearly has very strong opinions about most coffee shops in Arkadia.</p><p>She is telling him about the social mission behind the coffee beans she buys for herself just as they reach their destination, then interrupts abruptly to break into a huge grin, and wave vigorously at possibly the most beautiful man Bellamy has ever seen. He is tall and muscular, arms covered with gorgeous, dense patterns that seem to invite people to trace them with their eyes for hours, and when he smiles, it’s so warm Bellamy finds himself waving at him as well without even thinking about it.</p><p>“This is Lincoln,” says Raven brightly once she’s finished giving him a bear hug. “Lincoln, meet Bellamy, he lives in my shit town but is a decent human. Alright, now that you’ve met, you can entertain each other. I need coffee.”</p><p>“I offered to bring you coffee in the morning,” teases Bellamy, easily inserting himself into the friendly banter that clearly happens between Lincoln and Raven.</p><p>“Shut up. Do you have an espresso machine? The answer is, you do not. Stop distracting me, coffee is that way.”</p><p>“Would you believe I thought she’d chill out with age?” says Lincoln loudly enough for Raven to still hear him. She flips him the bird from her new spot in front of the counter, and that’s how Bellamy knows he’s in a city now – the barista doesn’t even blink at this whole display of congenial dick measuring.</p><p>“I think I saw some of your work,” says Bellamy to Lincoln just to start a conversation. This must be the mysterious tattoo artist, there is no doubt now. Just look at his arms.</p><p>“Have you now?” he responds with a slightly raised eyebrow, and the innuendo doesn’t hit right away, but then Bellamy realizes that the design on Raven’s leg must go a lot higher up than the knee, and he didn’t need that mental image today, no, absolutely not. He is making friends here, for fuck’s sake. He needs to make friends, he has established that, made a plan, set a goal. Getting distracted by his own dick was absolutely not supposed to happen.</p><p>Thankfully Lincoln notices that Bellamy is genuinely flustered, and he throws him a good lifeline, so that by the time Raven comes back with a massive mug containing what Bellamy can only assume are four espresso shots, they’re swapping tattoo horror stories like a pair of old friends. </p><p>Raven tries to invite Lincoln for lunch, but apparently he has a shift starting at twelve, so he excuses himself after coffee.</p><p>“Come and visit me at work before you head out of town,” he invites them as he puts his jacket back on. “Raven, I’ve got some new sketches you should see. I know you were thinking…”</p><p>“I see you, villain,” she interrupts, pointing at Lincoln menacingly. “No. I’m pacing myself.”</p><p>“There is a little one, a bird…”</p><p>“You can tattoo that on my whole ass.”</p><p>“I mean, it is a good surface to work with.”</p><p>Clearly lunch makes her less ballistic, though, because after a long walk along the beach and a nice plate of what can only be described as posh fish and chips, she asks Bellamy if he wants to visit the tattoo parlor. Apparently it’s totally on their way, and there are a few bookshops around, so they wouldn’t really be going to the parlor. Just passing by.</p><p>“How do you know Lincoln?” he asks as they set out into the narrow streets again, making their way back into town.</p><p>“Brighton Pride. I couldn’t convince any of my so called friends to go with me, so finally when I was eighteen I just went on my own. He’d only just started working, I think it was his first year. Anyway, long story short, I ended up telling this total stranger that I wanted to get a tattoo to piss off my mom, and he started convincing me that even a spite tattoo should be pretty. A week later I came back so he could do this.” She pulls her ear back to reveal a small design of three stylized triangles stacked on top of each other to form a bisexual flag. It’s a great mixture of subtle and unmistakable, and the detail is amazing. Bellamy strongly suspects that it was designed specifically for Raven. “I’ve never let any other artist touch me. He is a genius.”</p><p>Well, it’s hard to argue with that.</p><p>Raven turns out to have all the willpower in the world, because she goes through Lincoln’s sketches, coos and ahs over them, then returns the book with a stone face, determined to go a full year before she comes back here for a new shiny addition to her collection. Bellamy, on the other hand, lasts half an hour before booking himself an appointment for two months from now, and leaves with a few possible ideas to mull over because the only thing he is sure of is that he wants to keep up the general botanical theme.</p><p>And if, at some point, Lincoln takes advantage of Raven being distracted by a conversation with his coworkers to mutter some words of wisdom to Bellamy, no one has to know about it.</p><p>“She’s not gonna notice, by the way,” he says out of the blue, as he is putting Bellamy’s details into the diary. “You probably think you’re being obvious and sending her signals, but just take it from an old friend, she’s not gonna notice. If you want anything to happen between the two of you, you have to tell her point blank, and even then she’ll be surprised that it’s coming out of nowhere. Anyway, just some friendly advice. I’ve got you in for twentieth of June.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Cool Mr Blake</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>As pressure at work mounts, Bellamy buckles down and works. Until he hits a really bad day.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>So, you'll notice that the number of expected chapters in the story has now changed from 4 to a loud "?". Also, despite my bold assumptions at the start, chapter 3 actually contains no smut. I'm not changing the rating because it's still definitely planned, but, yeah. Somewhere along the lines, I have apparently lost the ability to write instant gratification smutty oneshots. </p><p>In short: my outline went to the bin and I now have no clue how long this is going to be, but at least I'm still having fun?</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Bellamy tries very hard not to think too much about Lincoln’s advice, but as April turns into May, it becomes more and more difficult to ignore. Raven is pretty much a constant presence in his life now, texting him with random comments, dropping in when she’s bored, and coming up with more and more day trips, as if she can’t get enough of his company. She lets him cook elaborate picnic lunches, then takes him to her favorite viewing points around Arkadia, so they can eat fancy little quiches, finger sandwiches, and outrageous muffins while chatting and admiring nature, then invites him over for tea and Netflix in the evening, because apparently she is a cool biker mechanic, but also an absolute grandma who likes to curl under a blanket after 8pm. One weekend, they go as far as to watch a few episodes of a documentary about Formula One, and Raven is unstoppable once she starts geeking out about cars and maintenance teams, sharp and radiant, and so gorgeous in her excitement that he could kiss her if it wasn’t completely inappropriate.</p><p>“So how did you end up at Sinclair’s?” he asks once they’ve given up on watching, hoping he can get her to talk about cars a little bit more. Hopefully she doesn’t need to see more of the show to get her going; they were both completely ignoring the actual race anyway. “I mean, you were the resident genius academic. How did you find time to learn being a mechanic?”</p><p>“Ah.” To his disappointment, she deflates a little bit, and he realizes that he maybe struck a nerve by reminding her about dropping up from Oxford, but before he can roll back, she looks up and starts talking again. “I used to hang out at Sinclair’s a lot as a kid. He… He dated my mom for a while. It didn’t work out, but he still let me stick around, even after they broke up. I always liked knowing how things ticked, so he showed me.”</p><p>“You mentioned he has a kid?”</p><p>Raven nods.</p><p>“His boyfriend’s son from his first marriage.” She suddenly grins, and it gives Bellamy three seconds to prepare himself for Raven being a little shit again. “Kid hangs out at the workshop a lot, and won’t shut up about how cool Mr Blake is. I haven’t told him you live in my building, I’m worried he might start building flower arches in your honor and block the driveway.”</p><p>“You’re such an ass.”</p><p>“You love my ass.”</p><p>“Sure.”</p><p>That last bit of banter feels like it hangs in the air a little, like they’re both not quite sure what to do with things that come out just a little bit too sincere, and it makes Bellamy think, once again, that he needs to finally tackle the issue, take Lincoln’s advice, and just talk to Raven about his feelings. Surely the sexual tension can’t be good for their friendship, whether they address it or not, but him confessing might clear the air. Maybe if she just rejects him, he’ll finally have a clean slate, and they’ll be able to move on.</p><p>He goes to visit his mom for May Day, and it turns out that going three days without seeing Raven makes him snappish and grouchy, to the point where his mother hisses at him too, and they have an absolutely stupid fight that he has to apologize for the next day, because it makes him feel like a barbarian. Great job, Blake. Fucking stellar. </p><p>Of course he doesn’t tell his mom why he’s been so touchy, because as much as they have both grown as people in the last decade, open conversations about feelings are still not The Blake Way if they can be avoided. Instead, Aurora gives him a hug and tells him to take care of himself, except when he comes back to Arkadia only to fall straight into a mountain of grading, he realizes that he doesn’t really have a lot of good options here. </p><p>It’s not just that he has complicated feelings and isn’t sure how to tackle them. It’s not even the fact that he is falling for Raven so quickly that it scares him. There is also another elephant in the room. So far, he’s been coping with his workload by going to sleep late or waking up very early only to free up his evening and weekends for Raven, but tiredness is starting to catch up with him now, and as end of school year grows nearer, he has even more to do than two months ago. Anxious, he calls Lincoln to rebook his tattoo appointment because he knows he won’t have the headspace to make the final decision on a design, then he buckles down and gets to work. </p><p>Does it help that as long as he buries himself in work, he can avoid thinking about his feelings? In a way, it does.</p><p>The first time he cancels on Raven because he can’t put off revising his lesson plans for next week any longer, it feels like a bitter thing in his mouth, and he’d like to say that it gets easier with time, but it doesn’t. After two weeks of refusals, Raven stops trying to invite him over, and he does try to keep up with texting her from time to time, but he also takes to falling asleep at his desk at one in the morning, so it’s not going great.</p><p>After three weeks, in the middle of a Friday afternoon, he realizes that he is about to have a panic attack out of sheer exhaustion, and thankfully by now he recognizes the signs well enough that he immediately closes his laptop, gets up from the chair, and focuses on breathing. After a few minutes, he’s calmed down enough to brave going to the kitchen to make a cup of tea, and then his phone is in his hand, and he finally stops overthinking. He just texts. </p><p>
  <tt>Hey, how is it going?</tt>
</p><p>The clock on the phone tells him that Raven should be done with work by now if she’s not doing overtime, and sure enough, he sees a notification that she is recording him a voice message almost right away.</p><p>“Hi Teach! Sorry, I’m about to get into Sainsbury’s. Life is good, yeah, nothing special. I picked up a shift tomorrow, so it doesn’t really feel like weekend, but you know. I’m still gonna make some gourmet shit pasta. How are you?”</p><p>
  <tt>Wasting my youth on writing test questions about the Middle Ages, mostly. Sorry, this is last minute, but can I maybe make you the gourmet shit pasta? I had a shitty day, and could use some company.</tt>
</p><p>He possibly should have just called her, because waiting for a reply is not what he needs in his current mental state, but writing comes easier to him than talking, especially when he’s not sure if he’s wanted, so here it is. He has a very clean hob by the time Raven texts him back, but his hob really needed a scrub, so maybe that’s a good thing.</p><p>
  <tt>Dont be a dick I can cook too you know<br/>You can come over in 30</tt>
</p><p>Half an hour later, he is feeling a little bit foolish about the fact that he asked her for help after three weeks of being around much, but he still knocks on her door as instructed. He <i>has</i> missed her a lot, and it’s not like he’s going to get any more work done tonight.</p><p>Raven smiles at him warmly when she lets him in, and it makes him lean in without thinking, because she seems so familiar and inviting. They haven’t been the hugging kind of friends so far, but she still lets him get through with it, and embraces him tightly with one arm, the other held carefully up so that nothing from the spoon she is clutching drips on his tshirt.</p><p>“I’m still cooking,” she explains, even though it’s glaringly obvious, and pulls away, presumably to tend to her onions. “Come on in. Tell me about your shit day.”</p><p>And just like that, he is sitting down at her kitchen table and at loss for words, because he never expected things to be this simple. He has feelings for her, doesn’t he? There should be tension, and drama, and whispered confessions, not a simple, friendly question as she is getting ready to feed him dinner.</p><p>“I’m sorry I haven’t been around. Work is kind of a lot right now, and I have so much shit to catch up on, and…” he blurts out instead of answering. In response, Raven turns around to face him – and rolls her eyes.</p><p>“Shocking,” she says dryly. “A man with a demanding job doesn’t have time for movie marathons when shit gets real at work. I’m not that thick. Did you know that you can see your kitchen from here? Sometimes I wake up at night to drink some water, and it looks like you still have your lights on. Is that why you had a bad day? Too much?”</p><p> The idea that Raven might consider his job demanding is surprising enough, but to top it off with her admission that she’s kept tabs on him, even if only by noticing when he turns the lights off… He doesn’t really know what to do with this knowledge.</p><p>“You’re not thick,” he insists, because apparently he deals with emotions by being contrary. “Anyway, that’s not the point. I don’t know, I thought you were mad.”</p><p>“Do you want me to be mad?”</p><p>“No.”</p><p>“Excellent. Do you like mushrooms in pasta?”</p><p>“Raven, I…”</p><p>“Do you like mushrooms on pasta?”</p><p>“Yes.”</p><p>“Amazing. Come up here, you can chop some.”</p><p>And that’s that. He gets up, feeling inexplicably weak in the legs after that conversation, then washes and chops mushrooms until his fingers feel steady and his head is clear, just like that. It’s okay. They’re going to be okay.</p><p>“I’m sorry,” he says eventually. “I just thought you’d be mad. I don’t know.” He sighs, and when words start flowing, they have nothing to do with Raven. Clearly he wasn’t just stressing about his feelings for her. “The school here is different. I used to work in a deprived area, so you know. Behavior problems, poverty, violence, you name it.  I thought, surely a posh little school in a posh little town is going to be easier. And in a way, it is, but… I knew what to say to those kids. I knew how to make them care whether they live or die. They don’t need that here. And I don’t fucking know how to explain to them that they need to care about other people. Not when so many parents keep teaching them that they don’t.”</p><p>“You can’t,” says Raven simply, and her words would sound cutting, if the tone wasn’t the softest kind of disappointed. “Some of them, you just can’t. If you’re the only positive influence in their life, you’re just not gonna cut it, no matter how good you are. But for all that’s worth, I went to that fucking school, and I would’ve killed to have a history teacher who cared enough to bring books about colonialism and all that shit. Sinclair’s kid talks about you in the workshop sometimes. You’re getting through to him. You’re doing good, Bell. Keep doing it.”</p><p>After dinner, neither of them is in any rush to part ways again, but they clearly don’t feel like joking around or providing witty commentary to a questionably good Netflix show, either. To Bellamy’s surprise, prolonged silences don’t feel uncomfortable at all, even as they feel longer and longer, and then he wakes up on Raven’s couch the next morning, wrapped in a blanket and with a thermos and a set of keys waiting for him on the coffee table. His first instinct is to startle and checks his phone, but once he remembers that today is Saturday, he focuses on the new message notification he can see in the middle of the screen.</p><p>
  <tt>Didnt have the heart to wake you. You can stay if you want but lock the door if you leave<br/>I finish at 2 so if youre still taking a break today we can get some lunch<br/>No pressure if not</tt>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Medieval warfare</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Bellamy gets very annoyed at a chapter in his textbook, and things escalate from there.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>With thanks to Drea for endless encouragement (FINE HAVE YOUR FAVORITE TROPE YOU DEVIL), and to Leisha for explaining British education in a way that prevented me from losing my mind while trying to google stuff.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They settle into a rhythm over the next few days, and while it doesn’t fix everything, it at least keeps Bellamy more or less on an even keel. Raven decides that she’s going to help him get through the spike in his workload by buying herself the first few books of some fantasy series she’s been meaning to check out, and crashing at his place to read on his couch while he works. The first time she does it is a little awkward, and Bellamy keeps looking up from over his papers to make sure she’s okay, but apparently she is perfectly comfortable just sitting in silence for three hours and keeping him company while he tries to keep on top of the horror called the summer term. He’s a little embarrassed to admit how much it helps his mental health to have company, but he knows Raven would kick his ass if he tried to be a martyr again, so he tries to just accept it. In August, he keeps promising himself, he will so make it up to her.</p><p>Of course a part of him knows that playing house with Raven like this will eventually lead to trouble, but for now, he tries to pretend that it won’t. They’re both adults, and perfectly capable of simple, platonic companionship. The fact that she keeps hanging out at his place definitely doesn’t make him feel more and more drawn to her. Those feelings are too complicated, and he has therefore scheduled dealing with them for after the end of term. His solution is perfectly in line with how human emotions work, and there is nothing here that could possibly go wrong.</p><p>“Ugh, I can’t believe that there is an entire module here about medieval warfare,” he groans one Thursday afternoon, as he is trying to map out a detailed plan for the next two weeks. “Just look at this. I don’t normally use this textbook, but the teacher before me had set it, and after he quit, they hired me kind of last minute, so I got stuck with it. The last thing teenagers need is yet another confirmation that it’s normal to be fascinated with killing tools. Fucking hell, look at how loving those sketches are. How do I address this and take away the glamor without traumatizing the kids with a fuckload of gore?”</p><p>“You’ve been swearing more since we started hanging out together,” she points out lightly instead of answering is actual question, possibly because she has absolutely no interest in the intricacies of historical education for fourteen-year-olds – or because she doesn’t want to add even more fuel into his rant. She still gets up, though, and comes up to his desk to look at the book. </p><p>“I was holding back because manners,” he admits, and passes the book on to her, as if he is making a grand point. “I fucking hate this. The last thing those precious little princes need is imagine themselves as fucking knights templar. I’m going to pretend this chapter doesn’t exist, dig out some funky historical sources about bizarre medieval customs and make the kids have a go at explaining them, to see what it’s like to be a real historian. That sounds like an actually useful project.”</p><p>“You know you just created an extra half day of work for yourself, right?”</p><p>“It’s fine. I don’t have to sleep.”</p><p>In response, Raven gives him that truly Raven look, a mix of fondness, annoyance, and one more thing he can never quite pinpoint, but it makes him smile like a fool. Without thinking, he reaches over to pull a strand of hair from behind her ear and disrupt her stern demeanor, except she seems to lean into his hand, and then they’re frozen like that for very long five seconds, before he loses all reason, leans up, and cups the back of her head. There is a split second of hesitation, their lips incredibly close, and then Raven gives him a tiny nod, and he kisses her with all he has.</p><p>The first impression is that she’s different – different lips and different hair, and a completely different stance as she grabs the armrests of his chair to hover over him to deepen the kiss. He was with Clarke for long enough that touching someone else feels strange now, but only for a few seconds. Then Raven straddles his lap right there in the chair, her hands holding on to his hair as they keep kissing, and it feels like he’s never ever touched anyone but her.</p><p>“I take it that I didn’t imagine the sexual tension, then,” he murmurs when there is a pause, and Raven is resting with her forehead against his. As soon as he finishes speaking, he feels her muscles loosen up a little, as if he gave her some kind of assurance, and he can tell she is about to say something, except the chair wobbles dangerously, and makes her jump off like a scared cat.</p><p>Bellamy is quick to follow her, and he covers up the awkwardness with a laughter and another kiss, hands stroking Raven’s lower back and hips as he pulls her closer. If he already committed the madness of crossing the line with her, he doesn’t want to hold back now. Whatever they do tonight, there will be the same price to pay.</p><p>“Can I take you to bed?” he asks once he is a bit out of breath, and Raven responds by surging up and biting his lower lip playfully. Clearly she’s decided to embrace this madness as well, and it makes some sort of sense. Having spontaneous sex with your friend is quite high up in the hierarchy of stupid ideas, so if they got this far, it must mean that they both have wanted to do it for a while.</p><p>“Couch also works,” she murmurs as she starts unbuttoning his jeans. She probably thinks she is very clever here, and he would be able to judge if she is, except Raven’s hands are inches from his cock and he is losing parts of his higher brain functions. “Desk? Carpet? Or bed, sure. Be like that.”</p><p>There is a small part of him that wants to respond by turning her around and bending her over the couch, just to see what she’ll do – but then he remembers that Raven had a knee injury he knows very little about, and he should probably run fine details by her before he makes a clumsy move and causes her pain. So instead, he grabs her by the belt loops, and tilts her hips so that she has to grind against him a little bit.</p><p>“Condoms are by the bed,” he points out, and kisses her again. “I vote bed.”</p><p>“Fine, I guess that <i>is</i> a good reason.”</p><p>Having to walk from one room to another makes this whole thing feel more premeditated and less like a spontaneous idiocy that will come back to bite them, so Bellamy lets himself be lulled in a false sense of safety, and believe that this won’t ruin their friendship in any way. Surely they’ll figure it out. Nothing bad ever happened as a result of him following his dick.</p><p>He is ready to overthink things even more, but luckily Raven is smarter than him, and she pulls off her shirt right away, giving him a view of tattoos scattered around her arms and shoulders. Unlike him, she doesn’t have one single dominant design – instead, her skin is like a treasure trove of Lincoln’s brilliance, with a beautiful geometric weave on her right shoulder, a thoroughly displeased small owl with a wrench on her left forearm, and what can only be a calm sea landscape near the left shoulder blade. Her back is mostly unclaimed, which explains her back and forth with Lincoln about pacing herself, and there is something incredibly hopeful about the way it all looks: a combination of beautiful, funny, clever, whimsical and profound images, surrounded by skin she’s left uncovered because she knows she’ll need it later, to leave marks of thoughts she will have in the decades to come.</p><p>“Jesus, you’re gorgeous,” he whispers, amazed, and when Raven looks up, there is something so vulnerable in her expression that he goes down on his knees to undo her jeans, leaving it to her to sit on the edge of the bed once he is done. </p><p>He isn’t quite sure when her bra comes off, but he knows that once he is done getting her feet out of her jeans and underwear, she is stark naked in front of him, and he forgets to take a good look at the tattoo on her leg, because he is too busy kneeling up to kiss her again. </p><p>After that, there isn’t much time for thinking or looking. He is too busy feeling.</p><p>His tshirt is on the floor by the time he is done kissing Raven’s nipples, and her hands are all over his back as if she’s mapping him out, but she doesn’t stop him when he goes lower, kissing her stomach and hips, and lower again, most of his skin now out of the reach of her hands. When he licks around her clit for the first time, pulls herself up enough that her fingers do find his hair again, and he moans when she greedily pulls him in, making him feel more wanted than he has in ages.</p><p>He is probably too slow and too gentle at first, judging by Raven’s slightly frantic pulling, but then he finds a spot right above her clit that makes her let out a choked moan, and he gets no complaints after that. Raven swears when he speeds up, making him laugh in triumph, and even be enough of a little shit to pause and pay some attention to her labia instead, just so he can come back to her clit in a moment and build her up again. </p><p>“Asshole,” she mutters breathlessly, but she is still making a mess out of his hair, and when he licks again, just in this spot she likes, he realizes that his chin is wet enough to make him feel incredibly proud of himself.</p><p>He doesn’t tease her again, though, and keeps a steady, quick rhythm until she is pretty much riding his face from below, thighs resting against his shoulders to give herself leverage, and he loses any sense of the passage of time. It feels like a burst of joy, the way sex hasn’t in a long while, and later, he will realize that this means his previous relationship died long before it actually ended, but not now. Now, he is stroking Raven’s hips, burying his face in her pussy, and taking bets on how long he can stay like this without coming up for a breath.</p><p>And then, just like that, Raven pulls him up, laughing and breathless, and he rolls into bed with her clumsily, kicking off his half-opened jeans when they get in the way. Raven lets him do it, then pushes him until he is on his back and she can hover over him, her healthy leg wrapped over his thighs.</p><p>“Oooh, look at you,” she whispers, and he wants to ask if she needs a break, but then she goes ahead and starts tracing the vine tattoo on his shoulder and chest with her fingertips like she’s wanted to do that since she met him, so he promptly shuts up and lets her touch him however she likes.</p><p>And touch him, she does. She seems fascinated by his tattoos, eager to kiss the white flowers, and the tiny blue-purple-pink string of blooms high on his other arm, where it’s usually covered by a sleeve. He bites his lip in embarrassment when he realizes that if she noticed the bisexual roses, she also now knows that he has a line from Virginia Woolf tattooed on his shoulder, but they don’t dwell on just how extra he was in his final year of uni – mostly because that’s when they both shift slightly for comfort, the motion seems to draw Raven’s attention to his hip. He’s still wearing briefs, so she doesn’t see everything, but then, the leaves on his thigh and stomach don’t leave much to imagination.</p><p>He got this one after breaking up with Clarke, when they were still living together, but sleeping in separate beds already, and it felt like the exactly right thing to do: a tattoo in a place that only he will see. Not something he’d have to try especially hard to cover up, but something he’ll be able to look at when he needed a little reminder. Raven probably won’t be able to tell that it’s a partially woven laurel wreath, but she won’t mistake the general tone. Those leaves were his first step, a reminder that there is nothing wrong with celebrating his body, in all its messy glory. He had to settle on this one very quickly, so that he didn’t lose the nerve or talk himself out of it – but he hasn’t regretted it once since. As far as metaphors go, wrapping laurels around his dick is so sincere and on the nose that it makes him embarrassed, but if he learned anything in the almost ten years between his first and last tattoo, it’s that sometimes true things sound unbearably tacky, and he has to be brave enough to embrace them anyway.</p><p>And Raven seems to agree, because she gently strokes the leaves with her fingertips, then looks up, and he isn’t exactly sure what she is asking his permission for, but he nods anyway. Given the circumstances, he doesn’t think there are too many options on the table anyway.</p><p>As it turns out, she simply shoves his briefs down his thighs, leaving it to him to take them all the way off, then gently wraps her fingers around his cock, making him bite his lip as he feels a sudden surge of arousal run through his body. It’s not like he wasn’t turned on before, and he’s definitely been hard since the first kiss, but he also let himself drift too far into his head after Raven came, and now she firmly brings him back into the moment, stroking and caressing until he pushes his hips up, greedy for more.</p><p>“So much for condoms,” he jokes weakly, and Raven gives him another stroke before playfully putting her finger over her lips.</p><p>“Hush,” she chides, unable to hide a smile. “That’s for round two. Just lie here and be pretty.”</p><p>Well, if that’s the case, he has nothing to hold back for.</p><p>It’s possibly ridiculous how little time he needs to come after that, but it feels so good Bellamy refuses to be embarrassed. It’s stupidly simple, too – just Raven sitting next to him on his bed, and stroking him with her clever hands as she watches him react to her touches. It’s so juvenile and innocent it doesn’t really have the right to be as hot as it is, but she is looking at him like she is trying to memorize every inch of his skin, and after months upon months of trying to hide from anyone and everyone, Bellamy is so transfixed by her attention that he comes for her in no time at all.</p><p>Once it’s done, Raven moves around him silently, wiping her hand on the bedsheets, then coming back up to rest her head on his shoulder. There is something unsure in her demeanor, but he won’t realize that until a bit later. For now, he is too blissed out to suspect anything might be wrong.</p><p>“You definitely have a floral theme going on,” she comments, and he laughs quietly, then gathers her closer.</p><p>“I like them. I don’t know, I feel like they balance me out. I’m a big guy, I’d look intimidating if I went into, I don’t know, wolves and eagles. Speaking of, I like your owl.”</p><p>“Thanks.” She makes a fake lewd face. “And yeah, you’re big alright.”</p><p>Bellamy rolls his eyes, then shifts his weight a little to hover over Raven, knowing very well that he doesn’t currently look very intimidating. Maybe he just wants her to look at him again. He did like her looking.</p><p>“Don’t be an ass.” He pokes her side. “Are we… You know. Okay? After all this? It was kind of spontaneous.”</p><p>“Don’t be ridiculous. Of course we’re okay.” She looks up, and schools her face into a casual expression, well enough that he isn’t sure what she is trying to cover up. “Relax. We don’t have to make a big deal out of this.”</p><p>“We don’t?”</p><p>She shrugs.</p><p>“We’re friends. We fucked. It doesn’t have to be… I don’t know. Something. It can just be this.”</p><p>“Okay,” he says carefully, not sure how to react. Raven doesn’t sound exactly right, doesn’t fully sound like herself, but then, he doesn’t know how she reacts to sexual situations. If the town gossip is to be believed (and in general, it’s not, but they do accidentally get a bit of truth here and there), she hasn’t been in a long-term relationship in ages. It might be that she doesn’t like them. Might be that she won’t want to go any further than this.</p><p>“Is that a problem?” she asks when he is quiet for too long, so he shakes his head to make himself focus. He can’t fuck this up.</p><p>“No, it’s okay. If that’s what you want.” He smiles. “Will you still sleep over? Since we’re friends and all?”</p><p>She considers him for a moment, as if weighing her options, then, to his relief, gives a very slow nod.</p><p>“Okay, but… Will you be doing any more work tonight? Or can we stay in bed and watch a movie?”</p><p>“Definitely no more work. I will even watch a movie that’s not set in any historical period.”</p><p>“Yeah, okay. That would be nice.”</p>
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<a name="section0005"><h2>5. A Nice Middle-Class Girl</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>In which, to characters' great surprise, it turns out that shit gets messy when you refuse to talk about your feelings.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I have edited this chapter so many times over the past week that I think it is now time to let it go and live somewhere on the internet. I hope you have some fun with it!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They do end up having a round two somewhere in the middle of that movie, and Bellamy will never ever look at Fast and Furious the same way ever again, but something still sits not quite right in his head, and he can’t pinpoint why.</p><p>It’s not like they’re doing anything wrong. All things considered, it’s probably healthy that Raven wants to just keep them friendly for now, instead of doing what he would do and possibly confessing undying love because seeing a boob made him emotional. Now that he thinks about it with a cool head, he is a little bit terrified by the idea of starting yet another serious relationship so soon after the last one, and it gives him some comfort that he isn’t expected to.  Maybe Raven is right and this is better. They can just be good friends who fuck sometimes, and feelings can be dealt with as and when they emerge. </p><p>Unfortunately, all that mature self-reflection doesn’t change the fact that he recently spent four years in a committed relationship, including two years of cohabitation, and his brain isn’t the best at processing this whole “friends with benefits” situation he is currently finding himself in.</p><p>What trips him up even more is that it turns out he was already very close with Raven, especially since she started keeping him company as he works, so it’s deceptively easy to start behaving like they’re a couple. Why wouldn’t he text her when he’s going shopping to check if she needs any last minute groceries? Or ask her if she had any day trips in mind for them for the weekend before he says yes to a Saturday beer with a coworker? Those are all incredibly easy things to do, and they feel so perfectly natural, but only until he notices Raven’s surprise. The only silver lining is that she doesn’t seem to be getting mad at him for those little trespasses, but he is sure her patience will wear out eventually. He needs to get himself in check.</p><p>“Mate, I’m just saying,” says Miller when Bellamy calls him one day for some friendly advice. “Cool biker veneer aside, deep down you are a nice middle class girl who just wants to meet a nice middle class boy to settle down with. How are you supposed to pull off having a fuck buddy? Admit it, you’re already trying to decide if you should ask for her hand in marriage.”</p><p>“Have you considered fucking right off?” asks Bellamy mildly, not even annoyed. He’s been friends with Miller since their first month of uni. The guy has a lot of common sense and good insights, but before he gets to them, he needs to get through at least fifteen minutes of being delighted by the sound of his own voice. </p><p>“Look, I’m just saying. No shame. You had an ugly breakup, you left London to do you Eat-Pray-Love, socialist edition, you met someone pretty, things happened. It’s how things go, get over, get under, all that, but… Come on, Bell. You’re not built for this shit. You’ll get your feelings hurt, and I’ll be forced to haul my ass to your charming little Arkadia-on-the-Sea or whatever, and fight that girl. It’s very inconvenient.”</p><p>“It’s not called…”</p><p>“Yeah, yeah,” interrupts Miller in a bored tone. “Whatever your charming hamlet is called, I’m not interested. Focus. The point is, I don’t want to fight that Raven girl. She seems cool. So don’t put me in a position where I have to fight her. Sort your shit out and stop trying to pretend that you can do the cool, detached shtick. Talk to the girl and fess up. Deal?”</p><p>In conclusion: it’s good to have friends.</p><p>Three weeks after his and Raven’s fateful discussion about medieval warfare, Bellamy is still determined to ignore Miller’s suggestions and keep playing it as cool as he possibly can. That doesn’t stop him from just casually turning left on his way from work on a Friday, and strolling towards Sinclair’s workshop. He knows what time Raven’s shift ends. Of course he does. He is just hoping that maybe they can walk home together. That would be a neighborly thing to do.</p><p>He’s only been here once or twice, but Sinclair still recognizes him as he awkwardly hovers close to the entrance, and waves him in.</p><p>“You’re Bellamy, aren’t you?” he calls out. “Come on in. Raven’s almost done, a customer just came to collect her car. How is my Ben doing at school?”</p><p>“He’s doing fine. I can tell he reads a lot, and he keeps asking good questions. You and your partner should be proud.”</p><p>Sinclair beams at him.</p><p>“We are. Oh, here, I think they’re all done. Reyes, your boy…”</p><p>“Bellamy?”</p><p>She says his name quickly enough, right from the doorway, but they both catch what Sinclair was going to call him, and Bellamy can feel tension rising, oh shit, he did the wrong thing again, he made things awkward. Friends don’t just surprise you at the end of your shift at work. Overbearing boyfriends do.</p><p>“I was passing by,” he lies, just to cover up the silence. “It’s nice outside, so I thought we could have a walk.”</p><p>Ah yes, excellent explanation. Nice weather. Such a rare and remarkable occurrence in late June.</p><p>“I have my bike,” says Raven with a puzzled expression, at which point Sinclair decides he’s had enough of this festival of awkwardness.</p><p>“We have some spare helmets there on the rack.” He waves at a corner of the workshop. “Help yourself, Bellamy. Reyes, if you show your face here tomorrow, I will fire you. No more extra shifts for at least, like, a month, or HR will write me up for driving you into the ground. Go rest.”</p><p>“You <i>are</i> HR,” points out Raven, and Bellamy can’t help a smile as he goes to grab himself that spare helmet. There is just something warm and endearing about Raven being this self-assured, cocky and direct.</p><p>“Then I know exactly what I’m talking about. Go on, now, have a good weekend.”</p><p>And that’s how Bellamy ends up sitting behind Raven on her precious bike, feeling distinctively like a juvenile delinquent being hauled back home by a vaguely disappointed parent. It’s amazing how this situation embodies that kind of feeling so exactly, when his mother wouldn’t have been caught dead riding a motorbike when he was a teenager.</p><p>“Sorry, I should’ve texted you,” he says quietly as they’re dismounting in the driveway of their building. “I just had a spontaneous idea on the way from work, I didn’t think…”</p><p>“It’s fine, Bellamy. Seriously, stop stressing about it. Do you want to… Dinner? Should we do dinner?”</p><p>Dinner turns out to be a cold chicken salad, because this week was hell and neither of them has the mental fortitude to face a stove, but at least once they are lounging on Raven’s couch, Bellamy is able to stop overthinking quite so much. Things are always easier when it’s just the two of them behind closed doors; no phone to make his words sound not quite right, or other people to confuse everything with their assumptions. Raven is just here, sprawled comfortably with her feet in his lap, telling him about some wanker who doesn’t know how to respect his beautiful car’s beautiful engine, and there is no need to wonder how she might interpret what he does next. </p><p>She smiles when he leans over to kiss her, then blankets get shuffled, and here he is – fully clothed, but settled between Raven’s legs, rocking against her teasingly as he kisses a trail down her neck, then lower, all the way to her stomach before she pulls him back up by the chin.</p><p>“Don’t want your mouth today,” she explains before kissing him deeply, and reaches back as soon as he nods, breathless and happy. Raven’s worn messenger bag is within reach, and she always has a condom in her wallet like she is some old school pick-up artist. He helps her find it as they fumble and laugh, just chucking random things to the floor to get to the wallet, because of course Raven has three screwdrivers in her bag. Of course she does.</p><p>After three weeks, her leg is a familiar sight, but he still strokes it with his fingertips as if committing it to memory as soon as he’s helped her take off her pants. The tattoo climbs in a complicated geometric design from her ankle all the way to her hip, and the piece around the knee is done so well that if Bellamy hadn’t felt the scars there under his lips last week, he wouldn’t be able to tell they’re there. If someone were to ask him what the tattoo depicts, he wouldn’t know how to start describing it, but he can tell, as he follows a piece that curves slightly around the middle of her thigh, that there is something quintessentially Raven about it: it follows a strict logic that he can’t grasp, and is beautiful in ways he can’t explain, but can’t look away from, either.</p><p>Luckily Raven pulls him down for another kiss before he can become too poetic about her tattoos, and she starts pulling on his belt, which is objectively the most erotic thing he’s ever experienced. It takes a few tries to settle on the narrow couch seat, and yes, it would probably be a lot easier to just move to bed, but it doesn’t even occur to Bellamy to suggest it. It feels lazy and indulgent to stay exactly like this, their clothes, cushions and Raven’s screwdrivers strewn around them as he sinks inside her slowly, and laughs when he feels her unceremoniously plant one leg on top of the back rest. </p><p>Afterwards, the only effort they make is to throw the used condom into an empty water glass within reach, so it can be dealt with later. Otherwise, they stay cuddled up, completely ignoring the ungodly heat outside and the objective grossness of leaving used condoms around. Domesticity is disgusting, yes, but resting his head between Raven’s boobs feels too good for him to consider hygiene now.</p><p>He isn’t worried, in this moment, that the other shoe might drop, so obviously it does.</p><p>“It’s okay, you know,” Raven tells him after a few moments of comfortable silence. “You don’t have to make that much effort. I know you don’t like it when people see us together. You can stop trying so hard. This is good. We can just be at home.”</p><p>“I… What?” He kneels up, bewildered, and it’s probably not his most dignified look, given that he is shirtless and his cock is still hanging out of his unzipped jeans, but here it is. “Where is this coming from? Of course I don’t hate it when people see us together.”</p><p>“Yeah, you do,” says Raven in a patient tone, like she is trying to convince him to stop being stubborn and to face reality. “It’s like… Your whole turtleneck thing. You always go really tense when people here can see your tattoos, or Lady Jane, or… You know. I get it, it’s a small town, you came here to have this whole new life, and being friends with me doesn’t help. Like, we don’t talk about it and you’re very polite, but I’ve lived in this town a lot longer than you, and I know what they say about me. It definitely doesn’t mesh with your respectable schoolteacher image. Have you heard the one when I set a rich girl’s car on fire before leaving for uni, and they couldn’t arrest me because they had no proof, but everyone knows it was me? Or the one about making out with a girl behind a shed like some big city slut?”</p><p>“That’s not…” He rubs his face, suddenly tired. Here it is. His choices came round to bite him square in the ass, in the worst possible way. Fuck, he should have said something about his problems with friends with benefits sooner. “Okay. I can see how you’d get to that conclusion. But it’s not what it seems, I swear. I’m not anxious, or, I don’t know, ashamed to be seen with you. I’m just… Fuck, I hate it when Miller is right.”</p><p>That, at least, diffuses the tension a little bit, because Raven tilts her head like a confused cat, and the face she pulls makes him crack up just a little bit.</p><p>“Don’t laugh at me!” she chides, but there isn’t a lot of fire in it, and she definitely lets him touch her cheek when she looks up to meet his gaze. “Who the fuck is Miller?”</p><p>“Friend from uni. He… Doesn’t matter who Miller is. Look, I don’t act weird because I’m scared people will see me with you. I act weird because… Honestly, because this whole thing is weird. I’ve never had a ‘just sex’ thing with anyone before. I was worried I was pissing you off. Also, and I know this isn’t the most important thing here, but why am I supposed to be shocked that you kissed a girl behind a shed? We’ve been out to each other for months.”</p><p>“You’re not supposed to be shocked, it’s just… Ugh.” She pulls herself up to sit a bit higher, and maybe it hits her that she is butt naked with her legs spread, because she tries to close them reflexively, then gives up when she remembers his whole body is in the way. “Why would you think you were pissing me off? I can’t think of a single dickish thing you did since you got into my pants.”</p><p>“You know what? This is the weirdest fight I’ve ever been in,” he points out, gesturing vaguely at the general nudity. Not to mention the comedy of errors that is their conversation. Is it the most relevant comment right now? Possibly not. But here it goes.</p><p>“We’re not fighting,” bites back Raven, with a little too much frustration for her words to ring true. </p><p>“Sure we are.”</p><p>“Fine. Maybe we are.”</p><p>The silence after that admission is long enough to border on uncomfortable, and on the bright side, the situation isn’t escalating any further, but also: it still doesn’t sit right with Bellamy that Raven would think he’s ashamed of her. Trouble is, he doesn’t know how to explain his behavior; not without going into excruciating detail of the last five years, of tensions and comments and fights. He doesn’t want to do that. Not today, and maybe not ever.</p><p>Which is all fun and dandy, but doesn’t change the fact that they just pulled a few skeletons out of their closets, then proceeded to solve absolutely nothing.</p><p>“My ex hated the tattoos,” he blurts out, because he doesn’t know how else to break the stalemate. Maybe if he can give her an abbreviated version, it will be enough for now? “I don’t really want to talk about it, but… She hated the tattoos, my bike, my friends, and a few other things. But you don’t. You don’t hate anything about me. I’d have to be an idiot to be ashamed of being around you. I mean, also because you’re awesome.”</p><p>“I feel like you should’ve led with that,” she points out dryly, and it’s not a full success on his part – but it’s not a failure, either. “So that’s it? You aren’t ashamed, you just have… anxiety about us no-strings-attached sex?”</p><p>“Kinda? Look, it doesn’t matter. Have I actually pissed you off? Like, been too clingy or something?”</p><p>Raven snorts.</p><p>“You’re not clingy,” she says, frowning. “You’re just… Bellamy. You always act like a soccer mom when you’re nervous, I’m used to it by now.”</p><p>“Just so you know, you making that comment gives me a petty temptation to ask if you really set that girl’s car on fire back when.”</p><p>“Oh yeah.” She gives him a little smile, that he takes as her being grateful for having an out from their conversation. “She… She did something shitty to my mom. A hundred percent justified arson.”</p><p>“If you say so.”</p><p>All in all, it’s a weirdly disappointing conclusion to their non-fight, and as soon as they get dressed and start cleaning up, Bellamy is mad at himself from not saying more, not being open with Raven. Maybe he should have put all his cards on the table? He could have done it. Could do it even now. Sit down with her, and tell her about years of trying to fit in, be respectable, be acceptable – and feeling like it choked him on some fundamental level. But even as he plays the scenario out in his head while putting away the dishes after dinner, he knows he’s not going to do it. Some things just sound too sincere, too strange and raw to just say them out loud, so here he is instead: trying to grapple with the idea that they’re doing something wrong if, less than a month in, their non-relationship makes her feel like she’s not enough, and him like he is constantly fucking up.</p><p>Maybe that’s why, when he speaks to his mother next morning, and she assumes that he is bringing Raven along when he comes to visit her in two weeks, he is too tongue-tied to deny it.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Prism</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>It turns out that sometimes it's a good idea to talk to your mother.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>And here it comes! It feels like that last chapter took forever to finish, but I'm deeply pleased with it, so all is well. Thanks so much for all the comments and encouragements so far - I really appreciate it!</p><p>And now that it's all done, let's please take a moment to appreciate the utter ridiculousness of me saying, about a month ago "oh yeah, I'm just going to write this quick modern AU one-shot to get back into writing before I tackle my WIPs". That went well.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The conversation with Raven about going to visit his mother together doesn’t go too badly, but it definitely doesn’t go according to plan. Bellamy breaks the news to her in the evening, and at first she goes really quiet, eyes fixed on him like she suspects trickery. Then she blurts out:</p><p>“Why would you want your mother to meet me?”</p><p>He shrugs, not feeling brave enough to give the whole truth. So, once again, he settles on the closest thing he can give without going into a lengthy explanation.</p><p>“I talk about you a lot. She assumed we are… you know.” A deep breath. “Look, I finally got my very Catholic mother to accept that I’m bi. I’m not willing to get into explaining our ambiguous relationship status to her. We’re friends. I like you. I think it’s harmless that she assumes we’re a couple, and even if one day we decide we want to go back to just being friends… If you don’t want to go, that’s fine, I won’t be mad, but it just felt really good that she offered. You know? She didn’t want me to have to choose if I want to spend my birthday with my family or my girlfriend, and that’s…”</p><p>“Wait,” says Raven firmly, interrupting his fumbling. Which is possibly a good thing. “It’s your <i>birthday</i>?”</p><p>“Yeah? I mean, my birthday is on the tenth, and we’d go on the twelfth, but yeah. Why?”</p><p>“Because that’s not nearly long enough to plan something for your birthday. God.” Raven lets out a comical little groan, like she is completely done with him, but in a fond way, and Bellamy finds himself relaxing, despite the fact that he absolutely didn’t expect her to latch on to something as insignificant as his birthday. He is even reaching for her hand to hold it before he can second-guess himself.</p><p>“You still don’t have to come if you don’t want to,” he clarifies. “But it would be fun if you did. And I think you’ll like my mom. It would just be the three of us, I don’t think my sister is coming.”</p><p>“Will there be cake?”</p><p>“Of course there will be cake.”</p><p>“Okay. I’m coming.”</p><p>But first he has to handle the last two weeks at school, which makes him feel like he’s been put through a particularly violent dishwasher. Summer holidays can’t come soon enough, and maybe a part of him is hoping that once he gets to have a break from work, he will finally tackle all those pesky personal issues he didn’t get to properly brain out during term time. The plan is that, under hot August sun, he will find words to explain why he feels wary of showing off his tattoos, why it matters so much that posh moms approve of him, why it doesn’t sit quite right with him to be dating-not-dating Raven.</p><p>Right. Because this is absolutely how adult responsibilities work.</p><p>Raven surprises him on the afternoon of his actual birthday by showing up at school with a backpack full of goodies, and taking him out on her bike to one of his favorite viewing spots. They gorge on donuts from the posh supermarket while listening to wind rustling through luscious green leaves, and it feels clean and simple, just an easy friendship, with words flowing freely and no need for any explanations.</p><p>The bright mood lasts even after they come back home, and he feels like laughing deep from the belly when Raven kisses him,  then whispers something deliciously filthy as he spreads his fingers across her back, greedy to touch as much of her sun-warmed skin as possible. They have an irresponsible amount of sex that night, ostensibly because it’s his birthday, but deep down, they both know the reason is not that simple. It just feels good to have the handy excuse of birthday celebrations to gorge on how much they love touching each other.</p><p>They leave Arkadia on Friday afternoon, and Raven, the absolute villain, shows up in a dress that does unspeakable things to her ass despite not being as short as it could have been. He knows she is being playful on purpose, not only because he’s never seen her in anything other than jeans before, but also because she plays it up, teasing and rubbing against him whenever she is sure no one else can see them as they walk to the train station.</p><p>It doesn’t occur to him until they’re in his home town, and he sees her adjust the hem and check if her ponytail is in place for the fourth time, that she wore this outfit because she wanted to look elegant to meet his mother.</p><p>Aurora greets them in the garden, too impatient to wait for them to ring the doorbell. She must’ve been keeping an eye on the window to step outside in the exact right moment, the way Bellamy sometimes saw her looking out for Octavia when she came from uni for various holidays, and it puts a smile on his face as he wraps his arm around Raven’s waist and nudges her to come in closer.</p><p>“It’s so nice to meet you,” says Aurora warmly as she takes Raven in, from the ornamental tattoo on her leg all the way to her tight ponytail.  “Bell told me you brought his motorbike back to life, I was so glad to hear that. He promised he’d teach me how to ride it, and he thinks I forgot about it, but he should know I never forget.”</p><p>This, unsurprisingly, turns out to be exactly the right thing to say, and Bellamy can see Raven unclench a little, her step a little more bouncy as they head to the Blakes’ kitchen. His mother used to be different when he was younger, tight-laced and frightened and strict, and so ambitious she almost took it too far, but he and her managed to mend some bridges since then, and with those restored, they were able to let time heal the more minor wounds. </p><p>Still, some things remained the same, and he has to laugh when he walks into the kitchen to find raw fish ready for him on the table, right next to an unopened bottle of white wine. He doesn’t even have to ask. He grabs three glasses from the cupboard, pours the wine, then turns the oven on so it can start pre-heating.</p><p>“Bell always says that cooking makes him relax, “ explains Aurora to a bewildered Raven.  “So I always make sure he can relax when he comes to visit.”</p><p>“You used to be a lot less shameless about this,” points out Bellamy as he starts seasoning the fish.</p><p>“Yes, but you were living here, and underage, and all that. Now you only come to visit your old mother once every few months, so I get to be fussy.”</p><p>“How old are you again?”</p><p>“Be quiet and put some lemon in there.” </p><p>They go to bed a lot later than usual, because Aurora is an endless stream of questions and anecdotes, and in some ridiculous way, this is the most grown-up Bellamy has ever felt. Yes, he’s been financially independent for years, and he hasn’t lived here for even longer, but after the amount of shitstorm that he and his family weathered in his teenage years, this feels like the biggest milestone of all: sitting on a couch in his mother’s living room, side by side with Raven, sipping wine, laughing, and chatting into the night, the way family friends used to when he was a child.</p><p>Raven and Aurora sleep in the next morning, but Bellamy’s sleep schedule is shot after the last few weeks at work, so he is mostly finished with preparing breakfast by the time they are lured into the kitchen by the smell of fresh coffee. It turns out Aurora has a plan for today, including showing Raven around the local sights, a picnic in the park, and some impressive birthday cake after dinner.</p><p>“Do I have to bake the cake?” he teases as he watches his mom inhale her first mug of coffee.</p><p>“Hush, Raven will think I’m a terrible mother.”</p><p>“Oh no, I’m all for Bellamy cooking all the time,” pipes in Raven, clearly drowsy enough to be unguarded. Last night, she listened more than she talked. </p><p>“Well, now that you say that…” Aurora grins and shakes her head, clearly delighted by her own mischievous ways. “No, I’m kidding. I’m baking the cake. Like old times. I was feeling sentimental. Haven’t had you around for your birthday in ages.”</p><p>He can tell from how Raven’s expression suddenly turns focused and vigilant that she picked up on this little tidbit, and is already turning it around in her head. To his surprise, it doesn’t make him nervous or scared that she is finding out so much about him just from being around and listening to banter. It’s almost as if he doesn’t mind her knowing – he just doesn’t want to be the one to tell her.</p><p>As day goes by, it becomes obvious that Aurora is trying her best to focus on Raven, make her feel as welcome and as appreciated as possible. The whole sightseeing bit, as much as Bellamy enjoys it, is clearly for her sake, and he probably should feel strange about being sidelined during his own extended birthday celebration, but it doesn’t really work that way. It feels more like acceptance, deep to the bone, like that time when his mother came to his room with a pile of university prospects and said, in her brave voice, that she didn’t want him to join the army after his A-levels, uniform class or not. That they would do something, find the money, figure it out – because no ambition she had for him was worth him continuing to turn himself into a shadow of a person.</p><p>He doesn’t have a buzz cut anymore, and his knuckles aren’t skinned from training until he drops, just so he doesn’t have to think about the future ahead of him, but as Aurora steps into the kitchen to get started on that epic cake, he still hugs her tightly, the way he couldn’t quite manage on that fateful day years ago, and whispers a very honest thank you into her ear.</p><p>“No need to get sappy on me,” she says even as she reaches to pat his cheek gently. “I like this girl, Bell. She looks at you like she wants to know what you’re thinking, not to make sure you’re thinking the right things. The last one was…”</p><p>“Mom, there is no need…”</p><p>“Yes, there is,” she insists, sounding like she is lecturing him for not doing his homework. “I should’ve done this three years ago, and I’m mad that I didn’t, so I’m doing it now. Look, I can’t lie to you. I don’t understand your whole… art, and freedom, and wind in your hair thing. You know that. But you bloomed when you went to university, and in your first job. And then, with that girl… You started to disappear. You got smaller every time I saw you. Like you weren’t proud of all those amazing things you achieved. I didn’t say anything, because I thought, maybe work was bringing you down, maybe there was some other stuff, but no. You still have the same kind of job, and the same friends. The only difference is, Raven is as proud of you as you should be of yourself.”</p><p>It’s a good thing she doesn’t wait for a response, because he doesn’t even have any, floored by this much praise and this much insight. Then he realizes that the door to the living room is open, so there is no way Raven didn’t hear every word. No way his mother didn’t intend her to, either.</p><p>Aurora makes a fantastic strawberries and cream cake, and they all eat way too much of it, but Bellamy still can’t stop thinking about what she said, as if it’s sitting wrong right on top of his head. He knows he isn’t ready to talk to Raven about it, and judging by how she is acting, neither is she, but they sleep holding each other close that night, so much for keeping it casual, and in the morning, when they eat breakfast before heading back into Sussex, Raven joins him in his promise that next time, he’s going to bring his motorbike with him, and give his mother that long-awaited driving lesson.</p><p>He isn’t quite sure how he is going to unravel the mess in his head, but little by little, bits of thought start settling in places in which they belong, as if his mother’s speech helped him give them direction, and so he texts Lincoln as soon as he is on a train, and asks for some dates and sketches.</p><p>He doesn’t set foot in that tattoo parlor in Brighton until the last week of August, and by that time, he’s had countless conversations with Raven, ranging from trivial to serious to utterly ridiculous. He isn’t sure yet what’s going to happen with them, and how the relationship will progress, but for once, it doesn’t feel like stalling or waiting for the other shoe to drop. It feels like they’ve repotted a much loved plant, and are waiting for it to grow into its new pot.</p><p>Raven didn’t come to Brighton with him, and she hasn’t seen the design, either, because it feels too personal to share even with someone as close to his skin as she is. He’s consulted designs with friends before, but this one, he has to decide on his own. After all, it opens something new in his life.</p><p>Back in July, he spent quite a few days grasping for an image that would feel exactly right, and to his surprise, he eventually found it on the cover of one of Raven’s old physics books he helped her bring up from the garage so she could see if she wanted to try going back to her degree. An optical prism, Raven explained, is a piece of glass or plastic that breaks white light into individual colors that it’s made of, and he knows that the concept is basic enough that he must have seen it in school at some point, but back then, it was too early for him to understand what he was looking at. </p><p>At first, he was going to have this prism added to his right arm, because he’s only ever had tattoos he could touch and look at in moments of doubt, to be reminded of what they stood for. Except Lincoln’s first sketch begged for a bigger canvas, and once he started playing around, and turning rays of light into branches of colorful flowers that go with other designs on Bellamy’s skin, it became clear that now was a good time for a change.</p><p>So today, he lets Lincoln tease out one of the white flowers curling over his left shoulder, and push that brand new vine into a triangular prism to let it explode into a rainbow of blossoms from Bellamy’s shoulder blade all the way to the column of his spine, vibrant and bold and unwilling to hide. </p><p>He isn’t getting this tattoo to remind himself that he should be proud of all that he’s achieved, or even to show on his skin that Raven made such a difference in his life, simply by showing him what was already there. There is no doubt that he should and that she did, but that’s not the point. He is getting it because he wants to have something beautiful, and for the first time in his life, he didn’t think to stop and ask whether he deserves it.</p><p>It’s not everything. But it’s a good first step.</p>
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